


The Autobiography

by Bolt_DMC



Series: The Bolt Chronicles [23]
Category: Bolt (2008)
Genre: Autobiography, Computers, F/M, Humor, Literature, Movie Reference, Music, Original Character(s), Post-Canon, Suggestive Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:21:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22585525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bolt_DMC/pseuds/Bolt_DMC
Summary: Bolt has heard that fanfics about him contain all sorts of wild inaccuracies, so he decides to take matters into his own paws and create his autobiography. He enlists Mittens to help him memorialize it on Penny’s computer, though neither is very knowledgeable about how these infernal machines work. Will Bolt set the record straight, and will Penny’s computer survive the ordeal? Primary cultural references include the movie “The Truman Show,” the book "Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank, and pop song covers by The Dickies.
Relationships: Bolt & Mittens (Disney: Bolt), Bolt/Mittens (Disney: Bolt)
Series: The Bolt Chronicles [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2041639
Comments: 33
Kudos: 20





	The Autobiography

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: January 2013
> 
> For Amy G.

1.

A puzzled expression settled on Bolt’s face, the cause of his confusion being Penny’s computer. The flat, clunky-looking black box had a tangle of wires trailing out of it, a stark contrast to the gaudy pink monitor to its right. An uncapped bottle half-filled with cola stood incongruously between them.

“Do you know how to run this thing?” he said.

Mittens nodded her head, doing her best to exude a confident air -- though inwardly, she knew she wasn’t any better versed on the subject than the dog. “Yeah, yeah. I… uhh… I’ve seen Penny navigate this whatchamacallit lotsa times. Probably got the gist of it, anyway. How hard can it be, really?”

The cat pressed the power button and waited for the machine to boot up. She stood with her back feet on the chair, right front paw on the mouse, left front paw on the keyboard. To her surprise and consternation, she found the former clumsily elusive to manipulate.

“Sheesh!” Mittens thought. “This thing’s not as easy to use as it looks. In fact, it’s more awkward than a herd of 14-year-olds at a school dance. Cats were meant to eat mice, not click them.”

Mittens’s initial efforts brought up a bunch of windows she hadn’t seen before, and in short order, the cat had managed to disable the computer’s firewall as well as deactivate its antivirus protection and pop-up blocker.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” asked the shepherd with a nervous gulp. “We don’t want to break anything.”

“I’ve got it under control, Wags,” said Mittens, a tinge of uneasiness in her voice. “You’ve just gotta... er… move the mouse around until that pointy thing on the bright box goes where you want.” Her emphasis on the name of the small device was designed to show off her self-assurance, which was in truth evaporating steadily as she fumbled around.

A few clicks more and an errant paw push on the keyboard brought up Penny’s email. “Huh,” she thought upon seeing the most recent message. “Hey, Bolt! Some Nigerian prince guy wants to transfer all his money to Penny’s bank account. He says he’ll give her a handsome reward in return. She was sayin’ something about needing some scratch for a new bicycle and some clothes, right?”

“Uh-huh,” replied the pooch. “She was just talkin’ about that to her mom yesterday.”

Mittens managed to click the box marked “Yes” in the message, sending off a reply. “Heh -- maybe I’m starting to get the hang of this inscrutable beast,” the cat thought. She turned to the little shepherd. “Okay -- done and done. Let the money start rollin’ in.”

An impatient glare crossed the dog’s face. “This is all well and good, but I kinda think we’re losing focus here. We’re supposed to be getting my life story in print, right babe?”

“Relax, Cujo. We’re just… uhh… just startin’ to get to that. Gimme a sec’ okay?” said the cat, trying to reassure him. “Word documents… word documents… Ah! I think this might be it.” She managed to call up a blank text file and activate Piper, the speech program Penny sometimes used when her hands felt sore. Bolt’s paws were far too big to type on a keyboard, so the speech program was his only viable option.

It took some effort, but the shepherd was eventually able to secure the headset and activate the microphone jack. Not surprisingly, the apparatus hung awkwardly around his big ears and sizable head, like an octopus trying to smother a clam.

“You really wanna memorialize that piece of self-indulgent tripe you charitably call an autobiography?” said Mittens with a shake of the head. “If it were me, I’d have polished it a whole lot more. You’re capable of much better than this.”

The pooch frowned solemnly. “Well, you’ve told me about all those dopey fanfics you and Penny read about me. Honestly, it’s as if those people make up any old dumb thing that pops into their heads. Alternate universes. Wild scenarios. Time travel. Teary-eyed death scenes. Turning me into a human. Porn, for dog’s sake! I’m still a public figure with a reputation to uphold, and it’s important I set the record straight.”

“I really don’t think anybody takes those things seriously, honey pie,” chuckled the cat. “But, hey -- when you get your panties in a bunch over something, it takes dynamite to blow the idea outta your butt. It’s just easier to let you push this off your plate and into the trash. Go ahead. Knock yourself out.”

The dog cleared his throat theatrically and began to dictate.

2.

“My name is Bolt. That’s right -- Bolt. As in nuts and bolts. Only I’m not nuts. As in bolt out of the blue. Only I’m not blue. As in lightning bolt. Which I used to have painted on my left side. And I can’t make a huge, destructive sound that’s as loud as thunder. Although I thought I could, once upon a time. You see, I was a famous TV star back in the day. Even more famous than Benji, or Lassie, or Rin Tin Tin. For real. Yup. Uh-huh. Only I didn’t know it, not back then.

“I had a Super Bark. And super strength. And super speed. And super jumping ability. And super heat laser vision. I could knock down buildings and scatter whole armies with one big woof. I could smash through walls and windows. I could head-butt cars into the air. I could leap over helicopters. I could outrun motorcycles. I could burn through metal with a single stare. Well -- no, not really. I couldn’t do any of those things. Not for real. Nope. Uh-uh.

“They fooled me. Fooled me good, too. It was all fake, like that movie ‘The Truman Show.’ Only I wasn’t Truman Capote. Or Harry Truman. I am hairy, though. All dogs are hairy. But not Harry. At least not me. My name is Bolt. That’s right -- Bolt. As in nuts and bolts. Only I’m not nuts. As in bolt out of the… “

“Okay, okay, Anne Frank,” interrupted Mittens. “Maybe it’s time we took a look at that first section. Y’know, perhaps do a teensy bit of fixing here and there?”

Dog and cat climbed up to look at the screen, but were thoroughly nonplussed at what the speech program had put up:

“Woof! Ruff, ruff, ruff! A-woooh! A-woooh! Bow wow! Woof woof! Ruff! Rrrrowf! Rrrrowf! Meow! Bow wow! Bow wow! Woof, woof, woof! Grrrr! Grrrr! Ruff! Ruff! A-woooh! A-woooh! Rrrrowff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff!... "

Bolt gasped. “What happened there? Where are the words I was saying? I didn’t expect anything like this! That’s quite a surprise.”

“Not as surprising as seeing that interspersed ‘Meow!’ up there,” replied the cat, shaking her head. “You been taking foreign language lessons?”

“Actually,” grumbled the pooch, “Hanging around you for as long as I have been -- well, you can’t help but pick up a few phrases here and there.”

“Regardless, I don’t think this is gonna cut it, Wags. Got a feeling that the dog-to-English function hasn’t been activated on this thing,” said Mittens resignedly.

“Boy, that sure was disappointing,” groaned the little shepherd. “What am I gonna do now? How can I get the truth out there? I need to set the record straight, darn it! My reputation with future generations is at stake here.”

“Y’know what?” said the cat. “Look at it this way. Maybe a healthy dose of spice and legend will actually enhance your reputation. Fame is three-quarters hooey anyway, and suckers on the Internet really lap up this kind of stuff, like kittens lap up a bowl of cream.”

Bolt sighed. “Yeah, maybe you’re right. Anyway, it’s not like I can really do anything about it. Not until I sprout fingers, at least.”

“Now you’re talkin’ sense,” said Mittens cheerfully. “But I think I’d better get rid of that text file full of ‘woof-woofs’ first.” Several awkward jerks of the mouse later, she encountered a prompt asking if she wanted to permanently delete the folder. “Folder, file. They both start with an ‘F,’ right? Probably the same thing. Aaaaaaand, done!”

“Mittens?” whined the dog nervously. “It’s getting towards 3 o’clock and Penny will be home from school soon. We’d probably better wrap things up.”

At this, the cat nervously began pushing keys and clicking the mouse -- but all this did was open a webpage that was decidedly not safe for work. An army of pop-ups littered the screen, framing the image of a naked man and woman pleasuring each other in an especially acrobatic manner. The hard drive light blinked frantically, suggesting that the machine was downloading a file.

A surprised look crossed the cat’s face. “Whoa!” she thought. “She sure is… uh… bendy, isn’t she? Wonder how she managed that?”

“C’mon, babe. Time’s running short!” groused Bolt.

The cat shot him a suggestive look. “Uh -- listen, studmuffin. Just give me a couple minutes to complete a little research here. I’ve got a hunch you’ll really appreciate my efforts later this evening, if you catch my drift.”

A knowing leer spread across the little shepherd’s face. “Ohhhh! Well, carry on then, by all means.”

Much trial and error later, Mittens finally figured out how to close the computer down. “Okay, Wags -- looks like we’re in the clear,” she announced with a dramatic sweep of her left front paw -- and in so doing, managed to knock over the open bottle of soda. Brown liquid poured onto the computer, seeping through its ventilation holes into the machine.

“Uh-oh. That can’t be good,” thought the cat as she grabbed the now nearly empty container. “Uh, hey Bolty,” she said, trying to feign innocence. “Here -- why don’t you take this accident-waiting-to-happen outta harm’s way. And after you toss that bottle out, we’ll head downstairs and listen to some tunes.”

The pooch cocked his head in thought. “All righty, then. Maybe we can dig out that disc of covers by The Dickies that’s got stuff like ‘Communication Breakdown’ and ‘Eve of Destruction’ on it. Sound good?”

Mittens laughed. “The clown princes of speed punk? Sure, I could use a good giggle right about now. Lead the way, cuddlebug.”

3.

That evening, Penny sat in front of her computer, stewing in frustration.

“Moooom!” she yelled peevishly. “Somebody left my headset all wet and slobbery. There’s a porn site sitting on my browser that I can’t get rid of, too. Have you been on my computer or something?”

“No, sweetie,” called Penny’s mom from downstairs. “I’ve got my own laptop in the bedroom, remember? I could look at all the smut I wanted to from there if I had a mind to.”

“Ugh! TMI, mom, TMI!” The girl began nervously clicking the mouse to minimal effect. “Why won’t these stupid pop-ups go away? I don’t remember seeing them before.” She irritatedly put her face in her hands. “And I can’t find my word files, either. It’s gonna be really tough to reconstruct that term paper I’ve been working on.”

Penny finally managed to get her email to come up, though with much difficulty. “Moooom! Some Nigerian prince just sent me a message asking for my bank account number. What do I do?”

“It’s a scam, sweetie,” came the voice from downstairs again. “Just delete it.”

To the girl’s horror, the screen flickered a couple of times and turned a solid color. “Moooom! What does it mean when the screen turns blue and has just a big frowny face and a bunch of numbers?” She frenetically pounded keys and clicked the mouse. “And… and -- aaugh! Now the screen’s gone black and there’s a mushroom cloud of smoke coming up outta the computer! Moooom!”

4.

Two weeks later, a large man in traditional African garb checked his email account and sighed heavily. The small room he sat in had all the earmarks of a clandestine hiding place, and a small gold crown and scepter lay on an end table to his left.

“Any luck?” asked the woman sprawled across from him on the small checkered couch.

He shook his head. “No -- haven’t heard from her for a couple weeks now. I really thought that nice girl from the ‘Bolt’ show would be able to help us get our money out of the country. Too bad -- we’d have rewarded her handsomely.”

“Being Nigerian royalty isn’t what it used to be,” said the woman ruefully.


End file.
